Tsetlin Machine for Fake News Detection: Enhancing Accuracy and Reliability

This thesis aims to improve the accuracy of fake news detection by using Tsetlin Machines (TM). TMs are well suited for noisy and complex relations within the provided data, which on initial analysis, overlaps nicely with characteristics found in fake news. We provide a performant and deterministic preprocessor, which is responsible for tokenizing, lemmanzing, and encoding to a representation that the TM understands. We compare our approach with TMs against Neural Networks (NN) models over a variety of well-known datasets within the fake news domain. Our findings show from comparable results to significant improvements over state of the art. Additionally, we show how TMs allow for interpretable propositional logic rules. For datasets with 2 classifications, we further convey these rules during inference by applying a color between red and green, which shows the intensity and what direction each word pulls the classification towards

Tapping network traffic in Kubernetes

The rapid increase in cloud usage among organizations has led to a shift in the cybersecurity industry. Whereas before, organizations wanted traditional security monitoring using statically placed IDS sensors within their data centers and networks, they now want dynamic security monitoring of their cloud solutions. As more and more organizations move their infrastructure and applications to the cloud the need for cybersecurity solutions that can adapt and transform to meet this new demand is increasing. Although many cloud providers, provide integrated security solutions, these are dependent on the correct configuration from the customers, which may rather want to pay a security firm instead. Telenor Security Operation Center is a long contender in the traditional cybersecurity firm space and is looking to move into IDS monitoring of cloud solutions, more specifically providing network IDS monitoring of traffic within managed Kubernetes clusters at cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services Elastic Kubernetes Service. This is to be accomplished by providing all the desired pods within a cluster their own sidecar container, which acts as a network sniffer that sends the recorded traffic through vxlan to an external sensor also operating in the cloud. By doing this, traditional IDS monitoring suddenly becomes available in the cloud, and is covering a part that is often neglected in cloud environments, and that is monitoring the internal Kubernetes cluster traffic. AWS EKS was used as a testing ground for a simulated Kubernetes cluster running sample applications monitored by the sidecar container. Which is essentially a Python script sniffing the localhost traffic of the shared network namespace of a Kubernetes pod. This infrastructure will be generated by a set of Terraform files for automated setup and reproducibility, as well as making use of the gitops tool Fluxcd for syncing Kubernetes manifests. The solution will also be monitored by a complete monitoring solution in the form of kube-prometheus-stack which will provide complete insight into performance metrics down at the container level, through Prometheus and Grafana. Finally, a series of performance tests will be conducted, using k6s and iperf, automated by Ansible, to gather the performance impact of the sidecar container. A series of iperf and k6s tests were conducted against the sidecar container. The k6s test was run at a data rate of 3 Mb/s and showed that the data rate needed to be higher to gather useful performance metrics. This is where iperf took over and tested the sidecar container at data rates of 50,100,250 and 500 Mb/s using a server at the University of Agder as base. These initial raw performance results showed a max CPU usage of 11.8% of the Kubernetes node’s 2 vCPU’s. Together with a max memory usage of 14 MB this showed that the sidecar container does not consume a vast amount of resources. And has the potential as a scalable and efficient network tapping method in Kubernetes. However, some anomalies were discovered during the performance testing that revealed undiscovered issues with the method. One of which was packet anomalies between the number of packets at the sensor and the number of packets observed by the iperf server at the University of Agder. Due to the many layers involved in the networking stack for this method, there needs to be conducted additional research into how these anomalies arise. While also considering alternative transport methods to vxlan

Effects of Cognitive-behavioral and Psychodynamic-interpersonal Treatments for Eating Disorders: A Meta-analytic Inquiry Into the Role of Patient Characteristics, and Change in Eating Disorder-specific and General Psychopathology in Remission.

Background: Knowledge about the outcomes of different psychotherapeutic approaches for eating disorders in terms of remission is limited. Also, knowledge is limited about how therapies and patient characteristics interact to affect outcomes, and by which therapeutic processes. Method: Reports on the psychotherapeutic treatment of eating disorders by CBT and PIT were searched. Rates of remission and changes in eating disorder specific and general psychopathology were computed and meta-analytically synthesized. Regression models were made to predict summary event rates by patient characteristics and changes in specific and general psychopathology. Results: Only CBT produced remission rates (34.2%) significantly different from waitlist conditions, and only CBT led to significantly greater change in specific psychopathology than waitlist/nutritional counseling conditions. However, CBT and PIT were equally effective in changing general psychopathology. Reduction in general psychopathology predicted higher remission for PIT. For CBT, change in specific psychopathology predicted remission only when controlling for differences between diagnostic categories. Change in general psychopathology predicted remission only for PIT. The presence of comorbid personality disorder decreased the effect of CBT. Discussion: A subgroup of eating disorder patients may require therapy aimed at strengthening deficits in self functions not easily ameliorable by cognitive behavioral techniques alone. However, although effective in changing specific and general psychopathology, PIT is not effective in producing behavioral change. Further research should be aimed at identifying treatment interventions that effectuate both behavior change, and strengthening self-functions to substitute eating-disordered behavior as a means to meet psychological needs

Analyse av kostnader ved børsintroduksjoner på Oslo Børs,1998-2008

Masteroppgave i økonomi og administrasjon - Universitetet i Agder 2009I denne oppgave har jeg analysert kostnadene ved børsnotering på Oslo Børs i perioden 1998-2008. Utvalget mitt består av 62 selskaper innfor et vidt spekter av sektorer. Jeg finner at den indirekte kostnaden, målt ved underprisingen er betraktelig mindre i Norge enn i undersøkelser funnet i andre land. Underprisingen er også lavere enn tideligere sammenlignbare norske undersøkelser. De direkte kostnadene ved børsintroduksjon er betraktelig høyere enn funn i andre land. Underprisingen i mitt utvalg ligger på 6,1% målt som første dags markedsjustert avkastning, mens den gjennomsnittlige direkte kostnad for en børsintroduksjon i mitt utvalg er 14%, målt som andel av brutto emisjonsproveny. Jeg finner ikke støtte i mitt utvalg for min første hypotese at primær- og sekundæreffekten påvirker underprising. På grunn av lite utvalg har mine funn lav prediksjonskraft, og ingen av regressorene i min regresjonslikning er signifikante på 10% nivå eller mindre. Jeg finner derimot støtte for min andre hypotese at det eksisterer stordriftsfordeler ved børsintroduksjoner. Det vil si at det koster mindre å bringe et stort selskap på børs, målt ved brutto emisjonsproveny, enn et lite selskap. Dette indikerer at det foreligger en del faste kostnader ved børsnoteringer. Jeg finner til slutt ikke støtte for min tredje hypotese at selskaper betaler mer til tilrettelegger ved børsintroduksjoner for å redusere underprising. Det er ikke signifikant forskjell på underprisingen når jeg rangere mitt utvalg i to undergrupper, basert på størrelsen på noteringskostnaden. Mine resultater er relativt forskjellig fra undersøkelser gjort ved andre børser internasjonalt. Men det foreligger også en del momenter og forskjeller mellom mitt utvalg og de undersøkelsene jeg sammenligner meg med som kan forklare dette

Subtelomeric study of 132 patients with mental retardation reveals 9 chromosomal anomalies and contributes to the delineation of submicroscopic deletions of 1pter, 2qter, 4pter, 5qter and 9qter

BACKGROUND: Cryptic chromosome imbalances are increasingly acknowledged as a cause for mental retardation and learning disability. New phenotypes associated with specific rearrangements are also being recognized. Techniques for screening for subtelomeric rearrangements are commercially available, allowing the implementation in a diagnostic service laboratory. We report the diagnostic yield in a series of 132 subjects with mental retardation, and the associated clinical phenotypes. METHODS: We applied commercially available subtelomeric fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). All patients referred for subtelomeric screening in a 5-year period were reviewed and abnormal cases were further characterized clinically and if possible molecularly. RESULTS: We identified nine chromosomal rearrangements (two of which were in sisters) corresponding to a diagnostic yield of approx. 7%. All had dysmorphic features. Five had imbalances leading to recognizable phenotypes. CONCLUSION: Subtelomeric screening is a useful adjunct to conventional cytogenetic analyses, and should be considered in mentally retarded subjects with dysmorphic features and unknown cause

Analyse av kostnader ved børsintroduksjoner på Oslo Børs,1998-2008

I denne oppgave har jeg analysert kostnadene ved børsnotering på Oslo Børs i perioden 1998-2008. Utvalget mitt består av 62 selskaper innfor et vidt spekter av sektorer. Jeg finner at den indirekte kostnaden, målt ved underprisingen er betraktelig mindre i Norge enn i undersøkelser funnet i andre land. Underprisingen er også lavere enn tideligere sammenlignbare norske undersøkelser. De direkte kostnadene ved børsintroduksjon er betraktelig høyere enn funn i andre land. Underprisingen i mitt utvalg ligger på 6,1% målt som første dags markedsjustert avkastning, mens den gjennomsnittlige direkte kostnad for en børsintroduksjon i mitt utvalg er 14%, målt som andel av brutto emisjonsproveny. Jeg finner ikke støtte i mitt utvalg for min første hypotese at primær- og sekundæreffekten påvirker underprising. På grunn av lite utvalg har mine funn lav prediksjonskraft, og ingen av regressorene i min regresjonslikning er signifikante på 10% nivå eller mindre. Jeg finner derimot støtte for min andre hypotese at det eksisterer stordriftsfordeler ved børsintroduksjoner. Det vil si at det koster mindre å bringe et stort selskap på børs, målt ved brutto emisjonsproveny, enn et lite selskap. Dette indikerer at det foreligger en del faste kostnader ved børsnoteringer. Jeg finner til slutt ikke støtte for min tredje hypotese at selskaper betaler mer til tilrettelegger ved børsintroduksjoner for å redusere underprising. Det er ikke signifikant forskjell på underprisingen når jeg rangere mitt utvalg i to undergrupper, basert på størrelsen på noteringskostnaden. Mine resultater er relativt forskjellig fra undersøkelser gjort ved andre børser internasjonalt. Men det foreligger også en del momenter og forskjeller mellom mitt utvalg og de undersøkelsene jeg sammenligner meg med som kan forklare dette

Effects of Cognitive-behavioral and Psychodynamic-interpersonal Treatments for Eating Disorders: A Meta-analytic Inquiry Into the Role of Patient Characteristics, and Change in Eating Disorder-specific and General Psychopathology in Remission.

Background: Knowledge about the outcomes of different psychotherapeutic approaches for eating disorders in terms of remission is limited. Also, knowledge is limited about how therapies and patient characteristics interact to affect outcomes, and by which therapeutic processes. Method: Reports on the psychotherapeutic treatment of eating disorders by CBT and PIT were searched. Rates of remission and changes in eating disorder specific and general psychopathology were computed and meta-analytically synthesized. Regression models were made to predict summary event rates by patient characteristics and changes in specific and general psychopathology. Results: Only CBT produced remission rates (34.2%) significantly different from waitlist conditions, and only CBT led to significantly greater change in specific psychopathology than waitlist/nutritional counseling conditions. However, CBT and PIT were equally effective in changing general psychopathology. Reduction in general psychopathology predicted higher remission for PIT. For CBT, change in specific psychopathology predicted remission only when controlling for differences between diagnostic categories. Change in general psychopathology predicted remission only for PIT. The presence of comorbid personality disorder decreased the effect of CBT. Discussion: A subgroup of eating disorder patients may require therapy aimed at strengthening deficits in self functions not easily ameliorable by cognitive behavioral techniques alone. However, although effective in changing specific and general psychopathology, PIT is not effective in producing behavioral change. Further research should be aimed at identifying treatment interventions that effectuate both behavior change, and strengthening self-functions to substitute eating-disordered behavior as a means to meet psychological needs